


Why Try (To Change Me Now)

by purpjools



Series: Human Hazbin Roommates AU [16]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Derogatory Language, Drug Abuse, Human Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Human Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Abuse, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27916255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpjools/pseuds/purpjools
Summary: There are temporary ways to fill emotional voids.Some use drugs. Others overeat.Occasionally, a select few commit homicide. To-may-to, to-mah-to, thinks Alastor.But reminiscing on trivialities in strange fruit will do nothing to ease the relentless hunger in his belly or the hollowness carved from his heart. All things come to an end.So why had he expected anything different?
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Past Angel Dust/Valentino (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: Human Hazbin Roommates AU [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699558
Comments: 161
Kudos: 143





	1. Sentimental (So I Walk in the Rain)

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Tags added with additional chapters
> 
> 2\. Main title and chapter titles from the song, “Why Try to Change Me Now” sung by Fiona Apple

Alastor should have known.

Nothing comes without consequence. Sometimes, it’s due to a chain of unfortunate events.

Sometimes, the blame lies with a single one.

Alastor returns home from his usual survey of his small slice of the city. He consulted with one of Rosie’s informants, then met with Niffty for their usual caffeinated catch-up. He ran-quite literally-into Vox while chasing after a similar type of vermin, and after a rousing descent into fisticuffs, spent the better part of the day reluctantly gift shopping with the fiend. He hopes Vox’s niece enjoys the nice Hello Kitty doll set he painstakingly picked out.

He shuffles out of his shoes the minute he walks past the threshold and is just about to head upstairs when he spots the light in the living room. He frowns. Alastor remembers that Husk had left for the day due to another one of his gambling sprees, and Angel should be upstairs gussying up for the dinner they’d planned. He hums, mind pivoting to another possibility. Perhaps Angel finally finished his face on time for once.

Alastor pokes his head under the arch. His boyfriend sits on their couch, curled up, with his face illuminated by his phone and the light of the single unbroken bulb overhead. The quintessential portrait of cozy.

Until one notices the shaking.

His heart quickens. “Darling?” He picks up the pace, a pit growing in his stomach. Alastor reaches the couch in record time and regrets it.

Nothing comes without consequence.

This goes doubly so for mistakes.

An erroneous mishap that results in Angel blinking down at his trembling phone, the staticky speaker spitting out those cold words:

_Wouldn’t it be a shame for him to end up in this crossfire?_

The preceding words form in his mind, and panic tunes out the rest.

 _Your son, Anthony_.

Life was precarious. His life, exponentially so. How did Alastor, in all his supposed wisdom and cleverness, think otherwise? That he was the sole exception to the one rule of the universe?

Everything is chaos.

And everyone, to some degree, knows that. And due to his hubris, another one of his many sins, Alastor is granted front row seats to his world’s demise. He watches as Angel’s face crumples and shatters.

“I-”

“Fuck, Al.” His voice breaks on his name.

“Why?”

A million excuses bubble up inside his mind, but nothing leaves his lips. Alastor doesn’t answer.

He can’t.

Angel leaps up and shoves the phone millimeters from his face. He plays the recording. The replay taunts him, resonating like thunder within that empty room.

_You know precisely what I’m alluding to, Henry._

_He ain’t part of this fuckin’ deal._

_Yes, he is. Now._

_You’re willin’ to leave my son if I don’t agree to this? Fuck. I’d call your bluff, but even I don’t use my family as chess pieces. I’ve known some cold motherfuckers in my day, but I think ya take the cake. You’re a bonafide asshole, ya know that?_

He braces for the final nail. The killing blow. That oh-so-familiar coup de grâce. This time, it’s not the words.

It’s the _silence_.

And then:

_Do we have a deal?_

Alastor’s stomach sinks to the floor. This is it, he thinks. This is the moment when Angel finally leaves him.

“Is this true?”

No, Alastor wants to scoff. Of course, it isn’t.

But it is. The context doesn’t matter because it is true. At least partly. What he didn’t say doesn’t matter, and what he truly meant, even less. It just _is_ , and Alastor is tired of lying to Angel. And alluding to half-truths.

When he doesn’t answer, Angel spins around and sprints up the stairs. Alastor’s heart stops. His legs move of their own frenzied accord, hot on his heels. As he reaches the landing, he notices their door swung wide open. Angel kneels on the floor of their bedroom, stuffing clothes into a small suitcase. Inky trails run down his face, tear paths made clearer by the mascara. He trembles, choking back sobs.

Alastor has never felt so small.

He grabs his elbow.

“If you’d just let me explain-”

Angel shakes him off, lips curled in a snarl. “Don’t _fuckin’_ touch me. Fuck you, Al,” he spits. “Ya don’t get to fuckin’ touch me anymore.”

“It was mutually beneficial,” he argues, and even that sounds weak to his ears. “Like most things in life, Angel. For all intents and purposes, _this_ is a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“No. That’s not how this works. That’s not how fuckin’ any of this works! That’s not love, Al. That’s a goddamn partnership, one of your fuckin’ deals, with extra steps!”

“That’s what relationships essentially are! Fundamentally, when you break them down to their bones.”

“Love ain’t about breakin’ shit down to make it more comfortable or simpler for fucks like you to understand! That ain’t love. That’s a fuckin’ sterilized version of life.”

“My relationships, across the board, have all been mutually-”

“Beneficial?” he sneers. “Like yours and Vox’s?”

Alastor scoffs. “I’ve never slept with the man, and never will, but professionally, yes. I scratch his back and he returns the favor.”

Angel stares down at his bag. “So you’re sayin’ that this, what we have now, is the same as the relationship that ya have with him.”

“Don’t be preposterous.”

His fingers fiddle with the zipper. He will not meet Alastor’s eyes.

“Al, I’m fuckin’ tired. I’m tired of bein’ used for everyone else’s benefit. I don’t wanna be a pawn in this big game of yours. Valentino’s. My dad’s. I fuckin’ don’t want to be. I never did. I just wanted you.” His chest hitches as a sob clogs his throat. “And I wanted ya to want me back. Just me, for me. You’re smart, Al. So fuckin’ smart.” Angel finally lifts his head, and Alastor regrets everything.

“Why was that so hard for ya to understand?”

Alastor’s heart constricts and splinters at his use of past tense. _Wanted_ , not want. _Was_ , not is. What remains is a sinking, spiraling maelstrom that crashes down with the intent of drowning him. He claws forward, vision blackening, unsure of which way is up.

“Anthony,” he attempts. He’s swiftly interrupted.

“Look me in the eye, Al. Look at me and tell me that ya didn’t just do that. That ya didn’t just use me as a fuckin’ bargainin’ chip to get my dad to sign your deal.”

He meets Angel’s heartbroken gaze.

He can’t.

Angel sobs, and it’s a broken, beaten thing.

His shoulders shake. Alastor reaches out unconsciously, but Angel shies away from his touch. His heart splatters out from under him, irretrievable and unsalvageable.

A mangled mound of useless detritus.

“I’m gonna stay with Cherri for a while. Get my head straight. Right now, I don’t wanna talk. I don’t want ya to touch me, and I sure as hell don’t want to hear anythin’ ya have to say. I’m too messed up for that.”

Alastor nods stiffly. His head feels preternaturally heavy as if burdened by a crown of thorns bogged down by an inexorable weight.

“Just…give me some time. I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever wanna talk, but I might. One day. I’m just too…” He trails off. The back of his hand is streaked with black marks. His face, smudged.

There’s a bizarre, splintering feeling inside Alastor’s chest.

“Heartbroken,” Angel finishes.

Yes, Alastor agrees, reconciling the feeling with the word.

Just so.

“Angel,” he tries, a last-ditch effort. “Please-”

Don’t go, he wants to finish, but Angel does not- _will not_ -let him.

“No, Al. Please,” he echoes. He zips up the bag. He wipes his eyes, smearing his face even more. Alastor itches to cradle it in his empty hands. “Just give me time to think.”

And just like that, Alastor watches as his heart walks out the door.

Each thud of the suitcase on the wooden stairs shatters it further, and the final slam of the front door is the coda that grinds it into dust.

Alastor sinks to the floor.

Andouille and Fat Nuggets waddle up to him, the latter nosing his foot. He ignores them. He fishes out the square object from his pocket.

Alastor throws the jewelry box against the door.

He buries his face in his arms.

* * *

Angel doesn’t come back the next night, or the night after.

The first couple of days, Alastor waits. He stands guard. Calls in sick to work.

Just in case.

After the first week, he stumbles to the mirror, shaves, and steps into the shower until his skin blisters. When he gets out, he changes into his clothes, powers on his laptop, and walks down the stairs.

He smiles at Husk stiffly, like an unused animatronic dusted off and thrust back into the spotlight, but with practice and the passage of time, the pantomimic mask eventually settles over his face. His roommate keeps his thoughts to himself as Alastor cooks them breakfast.

Husk raises a brow at the perfectly cooked eggs, rice, and fish, but chooses not to speak, preferring to shovel it, along with his opinions, down with his morning libation. Andouille and Fat Nuggets sniff and lick at his ankles while waiting for their feast, and with the early dawn glow raining between the window slats, it seems like a typical morning.

With the exception of the extra plate and setting that sits, unused, in the empty space between Alastor and Husk.

After breakfast, he busies himself and gathers up all the dishes with mechanical precision. Husk dutifully washes them, and Alastor pretends not to notice the scrutiny from the corners of his eyes. When Alastor’s back is turned towards the sink, Husk spies an abandoned mug near the coffeepot and drags it closer for him to wash.

Alastor almost _breaks_ his hand.

Husk yelps. He leaps back, swearing up a well-deserved storm while cradling his injured hand. Alastor apologizes, but it’s for naught. Husk stomps away, growling under his breath. Frightened by the uproar, the animals follow him out. Alastor, finally alone in the kitchen, lets his gaze drift down to the object that started the whole mess.

The one thing he cannot bring himself to do is to wash Angel’s mug. It sits and will continue to sit, innocuous as daylight, on the kitchen counter.

Lips smudged in pink along the brim.

Later, when Alastor slams back against the uneven bricks, catching his breath as the EMTs and policemen rush past the alley to the scene, he allows himself to laugh.

He stinks of pennies and piss, of DNA under his fingernails and scrapes along his jaw. He daydreams of corpses floating belly-up with skin the shade of rotting fish eyes. He reminisces, thinking about his recent oeuvre: flotsam and jetsam and innards and rivulets of blood forming into tributaries and blending it all into a deep, dark red.

He checks his broken watch. The face flashes in the dwindling light.

It has been two hundred and sixteen hours, thirty-two minutes, and twenty-eight seconds since Angel came home.

The rush fades with the sirens and leaves his body exhausted from the sharp drop in adrenaline. His mind powers off as he drags himself home.

Purgatory, Alastor thinks later as he scrubs and scours the blood from his body, is much worse than hell.

* * *

He doesn’t keep track of the days.

Alastor swamps himself with work and dives headfirst into his radio show, crooning into the microphone. He lays down his usual groundwork for jokes while not standing firm on anything, politics or otherwise, himself. He weaves his usual loom of stories and tall tales, embellishing only when necessary and for distraction. To his audience, he is as he has always been.

A paltry substitute for the emptiness gaping within.

Moxxie, of all people, asks about his wellbeing. During muted microphones, he assures him that he’s fine, thank you. Nothing to write home about.

“I get it, sir.” He fiddles. “Wind missing from beneath your sails? I understand. Millie is just as hard to read sometimes. But sir, it’s just…” He sucks in a quiet breath. “It’s just that you seem a bit _robotic_ lately, that’s all.”

Like he’s just going through the motions.

“I’m fine, dear,” he lies through rows of perfect, white teeth.

“But thank you for asking.”

Moxxie nods as he exits.

It’s not in the least convincing.

He crumples the letters asking after Angel. “Where is he” and “When can we expect him again on the show” and the worst offender of them all:

“When is he coming back?”

The song clicks on.

And the lyrics resonate.

(You can’t always get what you want)

* * *

Valentino sends him a video every fucking day.

He refuses to watch them, but the thumbnails are damning enough. The only consolation is that most seem to be dated before his and Angel’s relationship. In the meantime, he keeps blocking the numbers, but he always checks them first.

Just in case.

Alastor can’t bring himself to change his number, either. He leaves his the way it is.

Just in case.

His phone lights up with another notification. He has half a mind to chuck it across the room but corrals his breathing under control. The monster in his chest is another feat entirely, but over time, he cajoles it into near complacency. Until he views the text.

It’s a picture of Angel.

He sits, far too close to a man whom Alastor presumes to be a customer, smiling in that disarming way of his.

Like nothing has changed.

This is a recent photo, in light of the hair color and piercings.

It’s fine.

Angel doesn’t need him. Alastor is just a blip on his radar. Maybe he always was. There is no way that Alastor could ever satisfy someone as sexually experienced as him, or even scratch the surface. He very well can’t participate in threesomes, as previous events revealed, and is far too possessive to consider polyamory.

Alastor is defective.

And Angel is better off without broken parts.

His hands shake, tremulous with sheer rage and jealousy. He’s halfway down the hall, pacing when he stops. Angel wasn’t his, anymore. And becoming possessive over someone that tired of you and didn’t want you back was foolhardy. Or so he tries to convince himself.

With an unbridled burst of rage, he hurls his phone into the wall.

The screen shatters.

* * *

It’s just as everyone predicted.

He’ll always be alone.

* * *

At home, he avoids Husk and Niffty. He ignores their attempts at conversation and their furtive prying looks and heads straight to their- _his_ -room.

He rushes to the bed without taking note of the surroundings. He’s memorized it all by now. The last book he read to him, laying askew and dog-eared at the last recited page even though Alastor prefers bookmarks, gathering dust. The nail polish bottles strewn across the floor. The bed, too big, even with Fat Nuggets and Andouille crowding his body. They all are missing one vital component from it.

And are all the more empty for it.

He can’t sleep, even after re-reading his favorite book, so it is almost a relief when Rosie rings him. He stares at her name as the screen illuminates the dark. His finger hovers over the incoming phone icon. He contemplates even answering.

Best buck up and get things over with, he thinks. He taps it and lifts the phone to his ear.

Not one to mince words, she begins with, “You haven’t answered any of my calls.”

“Yes, apologies. I’ve been dealing with some unprecedented news. Quite a shock to the system. I do hope you’ll forgive me for not calling you straight away,” he answers dryly.

“How are you holding up?”

“Fine,” he lies. Her breath hitches and Alastor squeezes his eyes shut in tandem with the fist strangling his heart. He steers them away from any misplaced sympathy and from the lie he refuses to elaborate upon.

“So who’s winning the betting pool? They say Lucifer might be leading the pack.” He speaks with a levity he does not feel. The lightness in his voice belies the sourness frothing in his stomach.

For a moment, all he hears are her even, measured breaths. Probably the closest to pity that he will ever wrangle from her. Then, a sharp inhale.

“We’re not the most caring and considerate people, Alastor. It’s one of our many shortcomings.”

Understatement of the century.

“I know. Neither am I.” He stretches, hoisting his arm over his head before tucking it underneath his pillow. “So, who’s winning?”

Another pause.

“Valentino.”

He can hear the apologetic tone, but it matters not. Alastor closes his eyes, grappling with the beast howling inside his chest. Fat Nuggets squeals, a small, high pitched note while Andouille whines beside him. Fisting the sheets in his free hand, Alastor sucks in short, staccato breaths, gulping in oxygen to stave off the red bleeding behind his lids. It takes him anywhere from ten seconds to a full minute to beat it back to baseline. Rosie says nothing. She’s used to these fits by now. He bares his teeth and forces a smile sharp enough to be heard through the phone.

“Ah. Sounds about right.”

“Yes. And it’s the only bet Husk stands to lose, if trends continue.”

He laughs, hollow and brittle. It stings, yet another twist of the knife, to know that Husk was rooting for them to last. Perhaps from the very start.

“Dear,” she says, uncommonly gentle. “You do know that this is just a period of convalescence? What the plebeians call a ‘break’? He’s just mulling things over right now. It doesn’t mean that anyone’s won the bet, or that it’s the absolute end.”

“In a perverse way, I’d rather it be. Better death than torture. Better hell than idling away in purgatory.”

“Alastor.” The softness leaves, and her voice takes on a serrated edge. “I mean it. Don’t do anything rash.”

He hums, eyes fluttering open. “Rash? You think me rash, darling?”

“I think you’re the king of self-sabotage, yes. Especially when it comes to matters of love.”

He props himself up, hair drying in the cool evening air. He showered earlier, washing away the dregs of the day, the sirens still ricocheting and blaring in his mind. He stared at his feet, water sluicing over his hair and arms and trailing red ribbons in their wake. The caked copper stench rising with the steam. Alastor watched as the red clouds swirled in thin, tentacular tendrils, circling once before spiraling down the drain.

Inside him reside dark desires that although Angel does not eliminate completely, are tempered by his presence. Cowed back into the deep by his warmth. Without him, Alastor isn’t sure of what he can grow to be.

How massive his beast will become.

She startles him out of his trance. “You think you’re so perspicacious, darling, but the truth is, you can’t see the forest for the trees.” She stops, purposely waiting for him to absorb the information before continuing.

“Tell me, Alastor. And answer truthfully: did you bet on yourself?”

Alastor throws his head back into the pillow and laughs.

“Why would I do a stupid thing like that?”

The line goes silent. Alastor checks the screen to see if it has gone dead or dropped, when it leaves her mouth, rushing out in a sigh.

“That’s the problem, dear. You never do.”

He says nothing. The only sounds besides his breaths are the puffs billowing from Andouille’s dry nose and the piglet’s labored huffing. Predictably, Rosie speaks for him.

“Alastor, darling. If the desired outcome should occur, you ought to start.”

Easier said than done.

She can always tell when he’s finished talking or tires of their conversation, especially when he deviates from his loquacious self. Ever mindful of her manners, she wraps it up with a succinct but sincere admonishment, then bids him goodnight. He knows her well enough to predict that it won’t be the last he’ll hear from her, but that’s a problem for another day.

Especially now since empty days seem to be all he has left.

He shifts to his side, and after countless fits and turns, manages to fall asleep.

* * *

Angel calls out to him.

He laughs in that effervescent pitch that twists Alastor’s stomach and curls his toes. At first, his giggles echo in that disjointed, liminal space. It bounces off the abstract dimensions of the labyrinthian expanse until the whisper brushes against his ear.

“Did we ever get to the end of the story?”

He means the book, most likely, but Alastor has never been more unsure in his life. In any case, the answer is the same.

“No.”

He turns. Angel is there, grinning from ear to ear. Resplendent as always.

Like he had never left.

“Aw, babe, why not?”

Alastor swallows, memorizing the curves of his body. The constellations on his face. Those mismatched eyes, perfect in their irregularity.

His hollowed out parts ache something fierce. But he can’t bring himself to move, rooted to the spot as he is.

“I’m afraid you hate me, dear. I’ve gone and done something deplorable.”

Angel rolls his eyes. His hair glitches from pink to blonde. “Don’t be stupid, babe. That’s impossible. I can never hate ya.”

If only.

The rumbling in the distance grows louder with every second. The walls shift and slide against each other, a horrendous grating roar screeching out from the friction. Rubble falls from the infinite abyss above them. When everything starts collapsing, he lurches forward and grabs Angel’s arm.

Only, it slips from his grasp. Like rain through the gaps between his fingers.

“Please,” he begs, trying to hold tighter to Angel’s arm. For some reason, it keeps eluding him. His hand fails to gain purchase. “Please don’t let me wake up.”

“Why?” comes Angel’s distorted, underwater voice.

“Because you’re not here! You’re not _here_ and when I wake up, I’ll be all alone.” He blinks in rapid succession to allay the burning. “I’m all fucking alone, Angel, and I miss you. I miss you so, so much.”

A warm hand cups his cheek. In his dreams, they wipe away any errant tears. In his dreams, he’s finally free to cry.

“Please. Please, Angel. Don’t go.”

Angel laughs. It both ravages and soothes the ache in his chest.

“Babe, why would I go?” asks the disembodied voice, mangled with static.

“I love you.”

Alastor opens his eyes.

His hand reaches out unconsciously.

It’s met with nothing but dead air.

He flips over, facing the edge of the bed instead of the neat, silent, and unoccupied side. He shuts his eyes and waits for the darkness to recede, and the trembling to cease.

* * *

One day after work, he stops by a bar.

He needs a drink desperately.

He passed a couple today, who were aimlessly minding their own business, peppering each other with kisses while entangled in the rain.

_“Al. Al! Stop! I’m ticklish, ya asshole! Stop!”_

_The bench and their coats are dotted with rain. Thunder rumbles overhead. The grey clouds bundle together like matted foam as the skies darken, and the crisp tang of autumn rests thickly on their tongues. He erupts in a fit of giggles as Alastor prods on, undeterred._

_“I’ll stop when I’m dead,” he declares. Angel’s hands cradle his face and he gazes up at him with those beguiling, multicolored eyes. The emotions reflected in them shift with the weather: somber, worried, loving._

_Reverential._

_“That won’t be anytime soon, babe. I’ll make sure of that.”_

_Alastor rests their foreheads together, as if in prayer._

_It starts to rain, and faith overwhelms him._

Alastor dumps his briefcase next to the barstool. It lands with a thud. He signals to the bartender.

“Whisky, neat. Make it a double. Keep it coming until I say ‘when’.”

“You got it, boss.”

Peering across the room in a pathetic attempt to muddle his mind, Alastor settles on the primordial pool table. Two women perch on the edges, computing the possible formations with glazed gazes. Sensing his stare, one looks up and sends him an inviting grin. He frowns, then turns his attention back to the bartender.

It takes everything in his power not to lay his head in his folded arms. Angel haunts him at every step of the way. And the shackles clang with each aborted advance. He sips his drink, drilling holes into the bartop when a warmth invades his side. His heart leaps.

“Darling,” a wretched voice purrs, too close to his ear. His stomach dives. “You look like you could use a pick-me-up.”

Alastor shifts in his seat, reluctantly facing the fiend.

“Not interested.” He bares his teeth. “Find easier prey,” he suggests curtly. Alastor presses the glass against his temple, fighting back his escalating headache.

“Oh, but I have,” he coos. He pins the pad of his index finger under Alastor’s chin, coaxing it upwards. Alastor snarls. His hand shoots out and squeezes the offending wrist.

“Touch me again, Stolas,” he hisses.

Stolas smiles, leaning into the grip like the masochistic bastard he is. “A warning or a request? And rather the intention, love.”

He raises a brow, all self-assured angles and patrician confidence. “Rumour has it, you’re newly de-collared and available.”

“You’re married.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

“You’re in love with Blitzo,” he states flatly.

For a moment, a shadow crosses over his flirtatious visage. It’s gone within the blink of an eye, and Alastor is left wondering if he’d imagined it. In any case, he doesn’t elaborate and Alastor’s insides are strewn across the slippery floor as it is.

“And you, Angel,” he says, breezily. He gingerly perches on the stool adjacent as Alastor releases his wrist and tightens his grip on his glass.

“I’ll have a martini,” he croons to the waiter. “Dirty.” He winks at Alastor who rolls his eyes.

He remains blessedly silent until the drink appears. After taking a generous swig, he carries on, feigning obliviousness. “Well. At least your ex isn’t in cahoots with Valentino again. Small blessings, that. The man is insanely repulsive. Unless, well, I’m wrong, and he _has_ fallen back into old habits.”

Stolas could have fished out a knife and jammed it between his ribs, and that would pale in comparison to the excruciating spasms in his innards. Alastor brings the lip of his glass to his mouth, steading his hand to varying degrees of success, and empties the contents down his gullet. Red seeps into his vision, staining the edges and clouding his right eye. In the nick of time, another glass lands next to his twitching hands with a dull thud. He drains that one in the same fashion, ignoring the sensation of eyes boring into his face.

When the dust settles and Alastor regains a semblance of control, Stolas pithily remarks, “I hate that wretched man.”

If it’s an attempt at commiseration, Alastor refuses to accept it. He closes his eyes and listens to the idle bar chatter and the soft rock filtering from the jukebox. The tinkling of ice in metal shakers, the ringing clinks from glasses tossed in the sink. Anything besides the pounding in his ears.

The sudden hand over his makes for more than enough distraction.

His eyes shoot open. Alastor fixes Stolas with an incredulous glare, but as untoward as the gesture is, he doesn’t shy away from the touch.

“It’s like that song, isn’t it, Alastor? ‘You can’t always get what you want,’” he says, and a note of longing, or resignation, threads through his voice. The same shroud from earlier crosses his face. And yet again, as quick and ephemeral as a wisp, it evaporates. Stolas rearranges his mask to fit better and plasters on a wide, vacuous smile.

It feels like looking into a mirror.

“Besides, what do the hoi polloi say again? Ah yes. ‘The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.’”

This is a terrible idea, Alastor thinks.

The worst.

But Stolas does feel uncommonly warm over his hand, and perhaps Alastor has been underestimating how starved for touch he’s been for the past few days. Weeks.

How long has it been, again?

Stolas senses his hesitation and takes full advantage of it. He brings his hand to Alastor’s knee. He lightly squeezes.

“Time for a refreshing change of pace for both of us, don’t you think?”

* * *

This is where the road forks.

There are two endings to this story.

In one, Alastor accepts Stolas’s invitation and the fact that he and Angel are over, and burns every bridge and hope of reconciliation. He fucks Stolas that night with eyes pinched closed, pretending that the man underneath him is someone else, someone that he still loves. He buries the box somewhere far beneath the chaff in his closet and leaves it behind when he moves out. He trudges through the endless hours until one day, he forgets how Angel likes his coffee. He may or may not settle down with someone who vaguely reminds him of a man he used to know. He either lives out a long, somewhat humdrum life or gets it cut abruptly short in a police chase or shootout.

In another, he turns Stolas down.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.


	2. Habits (Even I Can't Explain)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Past abuse, drug abuse, implied/referenced past child abuse, derogatory language

Vox texts him first.

**You alive?**

He’s lying on the ground, unmoving and nauseated due to all the drugs he pumped himself full of the night before. Cherri stole his phone at his sober behest so he wouldn’t text Alastor in a drugged stupor. Not that it did a fat lot of any good. Angel remembers ransacking her apartment to do exactly that. He surveys the mess of upturned chairs and prescription pill bottles. Angel groans, extending his arms above his head. His joints pop and snap as he stretches.

Another day, another relapse.

His body feels bruised. Cherri assures him that it was due to the climbing and banging into furniture in the quest to find his phone rather than hooking up with a rando, but a sinking pit of dread gapes open in his stomach anyway.

Angel would never forgive himself if he fucks someone else now, during this liminal interim in their relationship. An intrusive thought burrows inside his mind, and nausea blooms in his belly.

What if Alastor thinks that they’re through? What if he’s already slept with someone else? What if he’s already replaced Angel?

What if he’s moved on?

No matter how his brain spins it, Angel can’t shake the feeling that it’s true. The likelihood of Alastor moving on so quickly is exponentially high if Angel’s past relationships were any indication. Angel is used to being stepped on and discarded, but somehow he foolishly didn’t think that it would be under Alastor’s sole. Men- _people_ -are fickle.

They’re just more so when it comes to him.

His phone vibrates. After watching him make a fool out of himself and tearing through half the apartment, Cherri sighed and opened the freezer. She handed him back his phone, but all he managed to type was a single, unsent fragment before he passed out.

**I miss**

Angel quickly erases it. Another notification arrives from Vox (“You okay?”) and his fingers fly.

 **Does he think it’s over I just left so maybe I should text him and make it clear because I needed some time to think**

**What if he moves on**

**Kid, he’s giving you time**

**Whether or not he moves on is up to him**

Angel’s heart falls to the floor.

 **But I don’t think he will**

**Take the time you need**

**Relationships are ducked up**

**goddammit**

**FUCKED* up as they are. Just have faith. It’ll turn out, one way or the other**

As he types out his last text (“Thanks, Vox”) another one pops up. His stomach somersaults until he reads the name.

**Cherri**

**Bb, u ok? Me & penny went to go grab food, will be back with TAKEAWAY for u **

**Goddammit penny fucked with autocorrect**

**Curry ok? (Japanese) Or smthin else? Lmk**

**Thnx babe curry is fine**

**Btw did I sleep with anyone last nite**

He knows he didn’t, but still. When Angel’s on a bender, he’s unreliable as fuck. He needs the confirmation so the pit in his stomach lessens.

 **R u serious? No!!!! U kept talking about al last nite**

**Pen got grossed out and peaced out early u didn’t even leave the fucking FLAT**

An ellipse. She must be thinking about her next sentence.

Then:

**All u want is al, babe**

**I’m sorry**

Angel is, too.

* * *

He moans, lolling his head back into the couch cushions.

Angel counts out the pills in his hand before swallowing them dry. Cherri read him the riot act for messing up her apartment and sullying her husband’s brain by apparently describing in lurid detail all the positions and kinky sex that he and Alastor partook in.

Slightly mollified but thoroughly chastised, he switches the television on. The news station, one of Vox’s, begins their evening broadcast. The homophobic correspondent, Katie something-or-whatever launches into her spiel:

“Three more bodies were discovered in the channel today, which makes the total body count *static*. It was a ghastly scene with many of the bodies flayed open. Reports from early witnesses state that the innards were scooped out and were strewn in what appeared to be deliberate ritualistic patterns around the bodies.

It is speculated that this mass killing was carried out as retaliation by local gang members as a result of a turf war. The murderer or murderers remain at large-”

Click.

“-veritable bloodbath of horrors today as the number of casualties pile up. Law enforcement is refusing to release names, but it is widely speculated that all those deceased are members of the-”

Click.

“‘Governor hopeful and local entrepreneur, Lucifer Magne, weighs in with his opinion.’

‘Terrible scene, just terrible. But if rumors are to be believed, the loss of life, as tragic as it is, was attributed to a local crime family, and the victims were _not_ fellow upstanding citizens, but criminals. Perhaps vigilantism is not as negative as some paint it out to be.’

‘And the theories that this was the work of single, deranged individual?’

‘Ha! Preposterous! Conspiracy theories, the lot of them. The sheer amount of bodies is enough to make one question. Hypothetically, if this _were_ the work of one person, then I’d wager that he’d be eligible for a promotion, as he did a tremendous job, what with the riff-raff moving here and all-’”

Click.

Angel sighs.

Nothing interesting on TV.

He pulls his knees to his chest, darting his eyes around in a desperate search for distraction. It never bodes well when he’s alone with his thoughts. The intrusive whispers and destructive tendencies from the monster on his back will not let him rest. It’s as Alastor always said: no rest for the wicked.

Tears slip from the corners of his eyes. He hugs his knees even tighter against his chest.

He misses Fat Nuggets and Andouille something fierce.

But he misses Alastor more.

As the room spins, Angel closes his eyes and floats away.

* * *

Alastor doesn’t call.

Angel turns off his screen. It’s not that he’d expected for him to, what with Alastor’s aversion to non-consent in any of their intimate iterations, and his newfound insistence on boundaries. He scowls at the ceiling. It’s not like Alastor gives a good goddamn about consent when he’s flying off the handles and gutting everyone in sight, or whatever the fuck he does in his free time.

Angel turns on his screen and unlocks his phone. He triple checks just to make sure.

Nothing.

He wants to hurl his phone at the wall but thinks twice of it. Alastor would never let him live it down if he noticed the shattered aftermath. He can vividly picture the mocking slant to his smile, and the derision behind his glasses. Angel may be a spitfire, but he can do spite just as well.

Fuck him, he thinks, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Just longing.

His phone trills, vibrating in tandem with his stupid ringtone.

His pulse jumps.

Angel initially chose the song to annoy Alastor, but it became a running joke between them when Alastor threw his prank back in his face. He would call Angel incessantly during his work breaks and when his show cut to songs. Angel hid his smile behind a huff whenever he answered.

Jokes on him, he thought at the time.

It only made Angel love the song even more.

He sucks in a breath, bracing himself. Determined to rip off the bandage as quickly as possible, he peers down at the caller ID.

It’s a punch to the gut.

Squeezing his eyes closed and against his better judgment, he taps his finger to the screen. Angel doesn’t bother with greetings. The familiar unctuous voice slithers through the speaker.

“Heard through the grapevine that you and your man broke up. Don’t tell me he bored of you already? C’mon, baby, didn’t daddy teach you how to work that juicebox?”

“Fuck off, Val. We ain’t fuckin’ broken up. Dunno which dumb fucks ya heard that from, ‘cuz that ain’t true.”

Valentino chuckles, and repulsion knifes through him. “Oh, isn’t it? Strange. My contact swore he’d seen Stolas sniffing around.”

The nausea from talking with his ex-boyfriend exacerbates from a simmer to a roiling boil. He gulps down saliva as the contents of last night threaten to rush up. He rolls into a sitting position in front of the coffee table. He unscrews the pill bottle and dumps one on the table.

“Stop fuckin’ lyin’,” Angel says, but it comes out as a plea.

“Ask him yourself. They were seen leaving together the other night.” He pauses. A soft snapping noise can be heard in the background. “Ah, but I’m sure you can ask your _man_ since he should be there with you.”

He’s not.

He’s not here with him, and it feels like missing a limb. Over time, he became a crucial part of Angel, and the phantom pain is unbearable.

A pit opens up and swallows his heart.

“Hm. I suppose he’s busy, then. You can ask that busy little bee when he gets back from the not-so-little bitch fit he’s pullin’ with your dad.”

Angel struggles to regain control of his breathing. “Yep, will do,” he manages between gulps of breath. His fingers fiddle as he grinds the pill to dust and snorts the prescription up his nose. A wave of relief quickly washes over him.

As usual, Valentino is hellbent on destroying even a semblance of peace.

“Don’t ya miss me, sweetie?”

He bristles. A flash of indignant rage ignites in his belly even as the drug works its magic.

“Eh,” he says, sickeningly saccharine. “I’ve had better since. _Bigger_.”

The salt does the trick.

“So a goddamn fuckin’ birdie told me. Size isn’t everything, sweetheart. Or maybe you can’t tell with that hallway cunt of yours.”

Sticks and stones, Angel thinks, even though he knows Valentino has both in spades. If Alastor is a missing part, then Valentino is a malignant tumor. He waits for the about-face as his ex-boyfriend composes himself.

He doesn’t disappoint.

“But if you are on a break, baby, you’re always welcome back here,” he coos. “ _Angel Cakes_.”

For a split second, Angel actually considers it. The mind-numbing drugs and loveless sex aren’t such bad ideas.

Until they are.

And Angel is done running.

“Funny. You must think I’m a dumb whore, huh? Well, from one dumb slut to another: fuck you, and the horse ya rode in on. Even if I wasn’t with Al, I’d rather die and go to hell than come crawlin’ back to you!”

“Oh?”

His voice crackles with anger. Although Angel has long lost any illusions when it comes to Valentino’s cruel streak, a reminder is decent of him. It’s always nice to know that he hasn’t gone completely off the rails.

“Tell me, how _is_ the limp-dicked asshole in bed? Can he even begin to live up to me?”

Angel hesitates for a heartbeat.

But that’s it.

“Best ride of my goddamn life,” he sweetly croons before hanging up.

* * *

Angel’s home screen hasn’t changed; it’s still, infuriatingly, Alastor.

_The sleepy visage of Alastor peers out at him from under dark lashes, smile crooked in a mellow curve. The starkness of the sheets contrasts with the subdued shade of his skin_

Days-and who’s counting, anyway-before, he slipped something else in his bag with the rest of his clothes.

Angel buries his face in the shirt.

It still smells of cedarwood and pepper.

* * *

His hands shake as he applies the polish. After the umpteenth time of smudging the paint, he throws the bottle at the wall, the liquid splattering in a watercolor burst. He stares at it, the unintentional graffiti blurring with every intake of labored breath.

Angel fucking hates his feet.

They’re too wide, too big, and years of wearing heels deformed his pinkie toes. To him, his feet are a stone’s throw from grotesque. His father and brother, and even Molly from time to time, heckled him, along with a never-ending chorus of people during his twenty and so odd years of life. Conversely, his mother never did.

And neither did Alastor.

He always made it a point to shower Angel in compliments that were just shy of ostentatious, and more than enough to allay the feeling of inadequacy. He was never the butt of the joke with Alastor, who was filled to the brim with them. Even Valentino would let slip a nasty insult about them from time to time.

But Alastor refused to, even at his most barbed and vicious. After all, he’d allowed Angel to run his lips over the keloidal scars on his back and chest. Six and three. As vainglorious as Angel can be, Alastor tops him in more ways than one. After listening to his confession about his insecurities over his marred skin, Angel pressed kisses to each and every one of them in conjunction with the beating of his heart.

_“I’d love ya if you were covered in scars,” Angel breathed between kisses. He harkened back to the drug-induced hallucination on Halloween._

_“Do you mean that?” Alastor asked, and in such an uncharacteristically small voice._

_“Yeah,” he confessed, laying down his soul, bare. “I’d love ya no matter what.”_

It’s still true.

And now, he wishes Alastor were here instead, painting designs on his nails and regaling him with silly, beautiful songs.

Instead, he is alone.

* * *

Angel passes out not quite on the couch, but near enough.

At some belligerent point, Alastor smiles down at him.

_“Every fuckin’ person tells me to grow a thicker skin, but maybe those assholes shouldn’t be dicks in the first fuckin’ place!”_

_A jealous girlfriend of one of his regulars stormed into his workplace earlier that night. She spouted off vitriolic garbage about everyone working there, but honed in specifically on Angel after she’d heard that he was her boyfriend’s favorite dancer. He couldn’t lie: some of those insults hit home._

_Husk rolled his eyes. “Kid, take it from an old man: life don’t get any easier. Tune out the fuckers, and learn to roll with the punches.”_

_“Yes, dear, listen to your elder,” came the mocking lilt._

_Eyes burning, he spun around to face Alastor who observed him with a pensive look. “You understand, right, babe?”_

_“All too well,” he murmured. At Husk’s quizzical expression, he elaborated. “When I was young, I received a scholarship to a prestigious high school. I eschewed my unfortunate, backwards accent the first month I was there.” He scoffed. “Ameliorated it to a more acceptable one, and only thirty days after I touched ground. Children can be such cruel brats.”_

_He cupped Angel’s chin. “My dear, you’re one in a million. Forget the naysayers, because they mean nothing.”_

_His lips were soft; their shared breath, more so._

_“Oh, my heart. Don’t heed the world. The world should heed you.”_

He wakes to wet lashes.

* * *

Angel doesn’t want to tell Molly, not yet.

Not while they’re still stuck in this limbo. She likes Alastor, and even Frankie holds a grudging respect for him. It’s so innate, the feeling that Angel does not want to disappoint either of his siblings.

Instead, Angel talks to Cherri when he can. She lends a shoulder and a commiserating ear in between work and her _wifely_ duties.

What he does not expect is Pentious, and his version of tea and sympathy.

“I could try to kill him for you.”

Angel can’t help it; he guffaws. “Yeah, good luck with that, Pen. Give me your measurements for your body bag before ya go.”

Pentious scowls. He slumps down next to him. “I said I’d _try_. At least I’d go out with a bang!”

“Or a whimper.”

“Pardon?” he sputters. “I’m perfectly capable of-”

He launches into his tirade. As exasperated as Angel is, he smiles softly. He props his chin up with a hand and listens to him with heavy lids and the muted notes of morning jazz in the back of his mind. In it, Alastor faces him with that ever-present grin. His dimples deepen as it widens.

_“Good morning, darling.”_

Angel starts as Pentious snorts. “Anyway, I digress. You love him, don’t you? Isn’t that all that matters?”

He searches Angel’s face for a moment, and it’s long and earnest enough for him to break the gaze.

Yes, but he’d loved Valentino too. And look where that got him. Angel is older now and under fewer delusions.

He also thinks it’s high time that he admits that he’s shit with love.

“It’s everything,” he says, and it’s the goddamn truth.

“He’s all that matters.”

In lieu of spouting empty platitudes, Pentious nods. He leans in and wraps his arms around Angel. He smells a bit musty, like mothballs, but Angel nevertheless burrows into the proffered warmth. Strangely enough, it doesn’t remind him of Alastor. It reminds him of all the friends that Angel has in his corner; the ones willing to lend a shoulder in times of need.

Angel _loves_ Alastor. No ifs, ands, or buts, about it. But Angel will never be truly alone.

Not when he has friends like these.

Cherri stumbles upon them and adds herself to the pile.

* * *

He wakes up, his mouth sandpaper dry.

He pads to the sink to refill his empty glass. As he turns the faucet, the sound of running water and the quiet solace of the witching hour stirs up unbidden memories. The cold countertop slices into his skin as he leans back and lets the past wash over him.

Angel remembers Vox walking in on him once. How he took one long look at him then sighed before hoisting him up. Balancing Angel on his hip, he slipped once on their stagger to the bathroom. He propped Angel’s listless body on the toilet seat, then tended to his wounds.

He whistled lowly. “He really did a number on ya this time, huh, kid? Whaddya do to piss him off?”

Angel didn’t answer.

What was the point? Anything set Valentino off in those days. He couldn’t, for the life of him, remember what did it that time. His head throbbed. A dull ache thrummed in his back whenever he moved.

“Fuck all,” he croaked. He winced, holding a hand to his throat. It was still tender, and Angel was willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that a garland of bruises would blossom around it come morning.

“Listen, kid. I’m sayin’ this for your own good. Get out.”

Angel’s eyes widened as best as they could under all that swelling. “This ain’t healthy, and it’s either gonna end up with one of you dead, and I know which one I’d bet my money on.” He tilted up Angel’s chin, searching his mottled face.

“Spoiler alert. It ain’t him.”

Angel bit back a retort. Coward, he wanted to say with vehemence.

Fucking coward.

Vox would never challenge Valentino to his face, no matter how much his heart supposedly bled for Angel. This went doubly so for everyone else, but Vox was special. It irked Angel for a good long while during the beginning of their relationship. And, if he were honest, the thought continued to bother him throughout. Valentino never saw Angel as an equal. Vox had no idea what that was like. He never kowtowed or simpered. Vox was never on his knees, unlike Angel who practically existed on them.

And he’d watched, along with Velvet and the rest of Valentino’s cohort, as the man belittled him and split Angel’s lip with his ring. Three stitches. They stood by and said nothing as the man he once loved busted his mouth open. Vox averted his eyes as Angel hugged himself, bawling. To him, that was the worst insult.

Maybe he was mistaken, but it stung more when someone who saw him as a friend chose to not lift a finger and remained a spectator to yet another one of the many humiliations of his young, stupid life.

Maybe he was mistaken, but he didn’t think so.

Even as he squinted into Vox’s blurry face, concern writ large, his heart cracked all the same. Vox would’ve sooner composed a eulogy than intervened. He was a shrewd man, underneath it all, and he’d done the calculations.

In the end, Angel wasn’t worth losing his partnership with Valentino.

The glass clatters to the ground. Water pools under his feet as Angel sinks to the tiles. He covers his head and braces for impact that never comes.

It bears repeating.

In the end, Angel wasn’t worth it.

* * *

"Comin’ to your old man for advice? That’s pretty fucked up, Tony.”

He remains silent. The late afternoon, piss-stained daylight pours in from the window slats to their left. A jagged crack bisects the family portrait as it sits, tilted and forgotten, on the mantle. By contrast, his mother’s portrait gleams impeccably in the glowing wake of dancing dust. Angel suppresses a sneeze.

He’s right, he thinks. This was a bad idea.

“I ain’t got any experience with swordfightin’, so if you’re wantin’ to ask about that, your cousin Joe, Uncle Vinnie’s kid, can help ya out.”

The worst.

“Yeah,” he grits out. “You’re right. Talk about fryin’ pan into the fire, huh? This was stupid, just as stupid as agreein’ to dinner.”

He tries to wrangle the volume of his voice to a lower decibel, but it cracks and escapes into the ether. He feels more like a teenage boy now than ever before.

“Sit your entrance-only ass down, kid. You ain’t got nowhere to be.”

Angel’s lip curls. “Fuck you, asshole! This _was_ a goddamn mistake.”

“Yeah?” His father sighs, leaning back in his leather chair. His hand gestures in a come-hither motion, and Angel instinctively reaches for his pack. “Like Alastor?”

Angel tosses it over, chills sluicing down his spine. Again, he refuses to answer.

He bristles when his dad selects the lucky and purses his lips around the filter. He pops the metal lighter open with a flourish, index and middle finger sliding down the length of it. He spins the flint wheel. The single flame dances as he dips the end in it and inhales.

Angel hopes he coughs up a lung.

“So,” he says, drawing out the vowel just like Angel. “Guessin’ this is about your fuckin’ boyfriend? Because when I see him next, I’m fuckin’ guttin’ him! Do ya know how many of my men he killed?”

Angel shrugs. “Dunno. Five?”

“Are ya fuckin’- _more_ than that! Way fuckin’ more! It’s gonna cost me a goddamn fortune to hire more goons.” He sucks deeply, the lit end a coil of volcanic ash. When he exhales, it’s a stream of smoke and expletives.

“Fuck! I _knew_ that asshole was gonna retaliate, just not like _that_.” He rubs his face. “This ain’t good, kid. Your ex-man’s out for blood.”

“An’ whose fault is that?”

“It sure as shit ain’t mine! _He_ said those things, Tony. Not me.”

“Yeah, but you sent me the recordin’!” His voice cracks. Angel ignores his father’s expression at the telltale sign. “I wish I didn’t hear it. I wish I didn’t know that he was willin’ to trade me over a stupid fuckin’ deal.” His lip wobbles, and he hates the way his father looks away.

“Ignorance ain’t bliss, boy. You know that from when your mama-what happened to your mama.”

Angel stares at his lap. His fingers twitch, but he fights back from fidgeting, recalling with alarming clarity of sharp cuffs upside his head and his father’s slurred admonishment to “stop fuckin’ actin’ like a little bitch” amidst hoots of approval. His father notices, shifting in his seat. How could he not? He’s the one who lorded over them with an iron fist.

Henry sighs. “Kid. There’s somethin’ I gotta tell ya.” He rubs the back of his neck, almost sheepishly. Angel has trouble processing it. He stares, dumbfounded at the unusual sight.

“Sit down and shut your goddamn mouth, boy. Tryin’ to catch flies? Sheesh.” He puffs out another stream of smoke, then shudders. “Or somethin’ else,” he mutters under his breath. He gestures to the chair, and Angel’s body is well-trained enough to obey before his father repeats himself. He waits.

Another huff, then: “It’s, well, your man-”

“Not mine right now. Probably not anymore,” Angel whispers, deflating.

“-he didn’t know it was me.”

Angel’s brain stutters. His eyes widen. “What?”

“He didn’t know I was your dad. And I sure as shit didn’t know your goddamn boyfriend was the fuckin’ Radio Demon.” Henry swirls his tumbler, thumbnail wiping the beads of condensation from his glass.

“We were only supposed to strongarm Vox to get Luci to negotiate a better deal, but I guess your man got fucked in the crossfire, so Luci hired him and this other broad to retaliate and hammer shit out. In _his_ fuckin’ favor,” he growls. “So what we got was an asshole comin’ in blind and unprepared to settle a deal because Valentino couldn’t be fucked to let him know that I was your old man, and then your cocksuckin’ boyfriend pulled a Hail Mary at the last minute.”

Henry crosses his arms and leans back. Angel’s mind buzzes as the new information soaks in. His emotions run haywire: Doubt. Skepticism.

Hope.

He chokes back the surge of it rising in his chest. “An’ so what?” he says, exuding bravado he does not feel. “That don’t make no damn difference.”

_It might._

His father presses on. “Thing is, I found out through the grapevine that Luci offered your man a shit ton of cash on top of all the other shit he’ll finagle outta this deal.” At Angel’s raised brow, he elaborates. “One of my flunkies looked into it, Tony. Let’s just say that it ain’t himself he’s spendin’ all that bread for.”

Angel’s heart stops. “What? I-”

He shakes his head. No, he thinks. _No_. Alastor still used him as a pawn. It shouldn’t matter if it was for his benefit or not. Angel is not a commodity to be bought and sold at his own fucking expense, goddammit.

But a wayward tendril slithers around the doubt planted in his mind. It’s tinged with more than a splash of curiosity and ripples past his last bastion of good sense. Alastor’s mind is windier than a switchback trail and ends in a steel trap. He nibbles his lip, and even in his father’s stifling and imposing office, invisible arms wrap around him and warm him from the outside in.

 _Oh, my heart_

_My Angel_

But nothing gets past his father.

“Don’t fuckin’ think for a second that he’s some kinda saint, Tony. I have files on this guy, and he’s done some heinous shit. He’s out for himself, like all of us, the world be fucked.”

Angel sinks back to reality, the arms more constricting than comforting now. He slouches while a nauseous maelstrom upturns his stomach. Still, a large part of him is willing to drown in their embrace than live without them. Henry harrumphs, the noise cleaving through the pitiful ache.

“Don’t get me wrong, kid. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and we gotta do what we have to in order to survive. This ain’t no excuse, but it is what it is. People are fuckshits, and there’s a lot more of ‘em than the decent ones.”

Angel is aware. He has the scars to prove it.

“Does it change what he did? No. Was he full of shit? Fuck yeah. But Tony, I’m tellin’ ya this, man to man, mano-a-mano: a fuckin’ blind and deaf guy would be able to tell how much he loves ya.”

Angel’s head snaps up at breakneck speed. “What?”

Henry snorts, derisive. “An’ I would say the same for ya. I ain’t ever seen ya that happy, not since your mama passed.”

At the mention of his wife and Angel’s mother, Henry’s face contorts. Stark sorrow carves its way into the wrinkles in his face, laugh lines replaced by years of mired grief. Angel’s fingers twitch as he observes this familiar metamorphosis. He itches to touch his own face, to see if the patchwork there is just as shoddy.

Henry gulps down the rest of his drink. He clears his throat, red in the face and green around the gills.

“Ya really love him, huh?”

It flows out of his mouth like a broken dam.

“Yeah,” he confesses, choking around the deluge. “I do.”

Everything burns: his throat, his eyes, his chest. He pointedly stares at his feet. His hastily laced up sneakers hide his toenails, the peeling polish gently applied by Alastor weeks ago. The socks tucked around his ankles are Alastor’s: the fun pair, patterned with cartoonish jumping spiders.

“What should I do?”

The chair creaks as Henry shifts. Seconds tick by. Angel is almost positive that his dad keeled over, from either shock or disgust when his gruff voice rumbles out:

“Dunno, kid. Ya gotta ask yourself: is this somethin’ ya can get over?”

Angel hesitates. Deep within him is a muddled answer, after nights of tossing and turning on Cherri’s couch. After late-night discussions with Cherri and Pentious over booze and cigarettes, watching the candles burn down. After rending his heart asunder and stitching it back together.

And possibly finding it in himself to forgive.

“Is this somethin’ worth fightin’ for?”

That answer comes faster.

Angel is only slightly surprised at the speed.

* * *

His father was never one for hugs, so they nod awkwardly at each other in the foyer instead.

“Thanks for that, Dad.” He shuffles his feet, scuffing up the ornamental carpet beneath his soles.

Henry grunts. “Sure, kid.”

Angel tries to bite back a smile. He fails miserably.

“So, I guess ya met my boyfriend, huh? Sorry ‘bout dinner. He can’t really control himself. Maybe if I stick with him, he can make it up to ya.”

“He _porked_ ya in your goddamn bedroom! I don’t care how much ya fuckin’ like him! I’m never gonna forgive that shitsack!” Angel snorts. His father continues to bitch and flail, the ruddiness creeping into his jowls.

“Ya know what that slimy fucker texted me the day after I signed his deal?”

Angel shrugs.

“ _‘Sincere thanks, from one daddy to another.’_ Is he fuckin’-can ya fuckin’ _believe_ his nerve?”

Angel’s shoulders shake as he attempts to hold back his laughter. “Yep. Sure can,” he chokes out.

The door swings open with the wind, and the breeze ruffles his hair. A fond feeling bubbles up from his stomach and creeps into his heart. It’s swiftly replaced by a sharp pang of longing. His heart yearns for something far away.

And his feet point to his due north.

Henry coughs. “Anyway, it ain’t the only thing he came to talk to me about.”

“What do ya mean?”

“Just…act surprised when the time comes, okay?” Angel furrows his brow and tilts his head. “If ya still decide to stick with him.”

Angel rotates the cryptic words in his mind but chalks it up to the awkward bullshit that uncomfortable fathers spout when confronted with their very gay son. Way above his pay grade. Eventually, he deduces that it must be his father’s roundabout way of expressing his acceptance of Alastor, and in no small part, Angel’s sexuality. That alone warms him more than a crackling fire, and it spreads from his core to the tips of his fingers and toes. He nods, because that’s what the men in his family do.

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll be seein’ ya.”

The door closes; this time without a slam.

The mist from earlier evaporated, and the howling winds from the west died down to a clement breeze. The air is crisp with winter chill and the stirrings of the season. Mottled leaves underfoot crinkle and snap like rubber bands pulled taut before being released. Each measured breath clouds, fog-like, at the tip of his nose.

The world-his-exists in a state of hibernal suspension, and waits with bated breath. Everything is less deadened and desiccated even with the frost, and verdant in spite of it.

He hasn’t felt this light in weeks.

* * *

Angel stands outside.

That’s the thing about him.

He may succumb to temptations as easy as Eve in the garden, but somewhere buried deep is the fortitude to climb. He is, above all, a survivor. Sixteen when he was tossed out on his ass, Angel supported himself through stripping and dubious methods of employment, eventually quit using, and ditched the excess baggage along the way. The world may scourge him and beat him blue and bloody, but he always claws his way out.

Bruised, true. Limping, yes. But _breathing_.

Angel is no damsel in distress. He has left more men than he can count on two hands. And before this, leaving Valentino had been the most difficult decision of his life to date.

He never imagined that anything could be more heart-wrenching.

Then along came Alastor.

Sucking in a breath, Angel squares his shoulders, fist poised to knock.

This is dumb, he thinks as his nerve vanishes. His hand drops.

Suddenly, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Cursing under his breath, he fishes it out. The artificial light pierces through the night like a beacon.

 **9:23 PM**

**Vox**

**Look kid no one deserves you especially that asshole**

**Lord knows I ducking hate his guts and I ain’t saying that u need to give him a chance in hell**

**…**

**But hear him out**

**…**

**Who knows**

**One day he might prove himself worthy**

**God knows the rest of us failed**

It’s as close to an apology as he’ll ever receive.

He slips his phone back into his pocket. He straightens up. Common sense eludes him, but he calls on courage. He dregs it up from the muck and morass.

He takes one breath.

Two.

Angel knocks.

There’s a smattering of cursing, the slaps of bare feet on hardwood, and finally, the slow turning of the knob.

The night creeps around him in the form of nocturnal chirps and the muted static from the evening shows droning on incessantly in the living rooms across the neighborhood. The wind whistles past him, scooping up leaves in its fluttering wake. Crackling and hissing noises snake from the kitchen window next door, bringing with it the sweet and oleaginous aroma of fried fruit.

The door opens.

Husk lets him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. USA domestic violence hotline: 1-800-799-7233  
> TTY: 1-800-787-3224
> 
> 2\. SAMHSA, Substance Abuse and Mental Help Services Administration hotline (USA) : 1-800-662-4357


	3. I’ll Love You (Till the Moon’s Upside Down)

“Obviously, I’m fine,” he declares in lieu of an actual greeting while sporting bloodshot eyes. “Just a mild case of the doldrums, nothing to fret over.”

“Don’t get tetchy with me, dear. We’re both not in the mood. You, decidedly less so.”

She whips past him and struts down the hallway. Grumbling, he follows her with heavy footsteps. She bustles through the kitchen like a storm, gathering up all the necessities to prepare for battle. If one were to count both the inward and outward ones.

She’s putting the kettle on when she says, “I’m not going to lambaste you any more than what you’ve already done to yourself.”

He leans back into the counter as she opens the cupboards and selects suitable mugs. She looks askance at the pink-rimmed one near his elbow, but purses her lips and shakes her head as if thinking better of it. She meets his gaze instead.

“That’s simply low-hanging fruit.”

He crosses his arms, feeling marginally like a petulant schoolboy. “Then why are you here?”

She searches his face for a pregnant moment. After a beat, she reaches out and fits her hand between his folded arms, unfurling them from their defensive knot. She gingerly picks up his wrist to place her hand over his.

The foggy late afternoon glow seeps through the kitchen. It percolates, like the boiling water in the kettle behind them, and sinks its residual warmth into their skin. The tiles remain frost cold under their bare feet, but the weight of their hands is anything but.

“I’m here as a friend.”

A light squeeze. He feels it in his chest.

After she pours them each a cup of proper tea (“Not the kind you have in your fridge, dear”), they sip silently in the tenuous interim that follows.

“Rosie,” he says, finally. “I burned the roux.”

The table judders as he worries the leg with his feet. She sets the mug down.

“I haven’t burned the roux since I was nine.” His voice cracks. He drums his fingers on the table.

“I burned the roux,” he repeats.

Under her narrowed eyed scrutiny, he feels so small. Like how he felt when they first told him about his mother.

Rosie places a hand on his knee. He flinches, nearly banging it under the table were it not for her palm anchoring him.

“You can always make another one,” she says.

Alastor stares at her with uncomprehending eyes. “I don’t want another one.”

Rosie is a stalwart companion, thick-skinned with a stomach of steel. But she’s never been able to grasp the more delicate aspects of human emotions well and is especially not prepared for the blatant anguish scraped raw across her closest friend’s face.

He’s not offended when she has to look away.

* * *

“The problem, dear, is well, _you_.”

Alastor scowls into his tea.

No matter how many times he attempts to change the subject, she always manages to circle back and parry. Throwing in the towel, for the time being, he brings the mug down with slightly more force than necessary. Her eyes narrow.

“For a grown man, you are remarkably sophomoric,” she snipes. He doesn’t deign to answer. Instead, he crosses his arms and settles back into the chair. Undeterred, she plows on.

“I can count on one hand how many times I’ve felt as strongly about someone as you do for him,” she breezily continues. “And even I, as constipated with the matters of the heart as anyone remotely involved in our line of work, know how precious that is.” She pins him with a piercing stare.

“You really are shit at seeing the forest, aren’t you?”

Yes.

And it’s his cross to bear.

Heart in tatters from Angel’s leaving and her verbal lashing, he hisses, “What’s the fucking point, then? It’s all just a fool’s errand, isn’t it?”

He means love.

She rolls her neck, utterly unfazed by the mercurial switch. “Far be it from me.”

His shoulders hike up as he snarls in indignation. “You know, I hate it when you speak in riddles. Should I or should I not contact him?”

“Oh for heaven’s-you most definitely should not! This is a mess of your own doing, Alastor. As far as anyone sane is concerned-which means present company excluded-he’s not the one at fault. You will wait until he’s ready to talk.”

He slumps back down. True to form, she offers him no reprieve.

“You know how callous you can be. You’ve a sweet disposition when it suits you, but that’s generally the same across the board.”

“You make me sound like a dog.”

She scoffs. “Do you regret saying it, or him finding out?”

“Both,” he automatically admits, then winces. It sounds just as terrible vocalized. For her part, Rosie appears to agree. She sniffs.

“This is a high stakes game, Alastor. We all toe this intangible line: me, you, Vox. Most of us are unattached for a reason that we all had to learn, one way or another. It’s a harsh lesson that weeds out the infirm.”

“Angel can take care of himself,” he insists, but it’s a weak, feeble gesture that means little.

“He’s certainly capable, yes. But when the time comes, and it will, should you carry on the way you are now, then what? Will you allow him to answer for your transgressions? Can you live knowing that you were the root of that pain?”

This time, she doesn’t let him look away. Her gaze bores into his.

“Our lifestyle doesn’t allow much leeway, and less for love, Alastor. Death is the only guarantee.” Her lips curve in a wry smile. “A foolproof exit plan, as it were.”

He huffs into his mug.

“But I think,” she continues softly, “that you’ve been mulling it over. Something has to give, and I’m rather inclined to think it might be you.”

When he responds, it’s with a voice hoarse with disquiet despair.

“Am I that transparent?”

“Glass.”

Alastor has the most difficult time concentrating on her words. Everything sounds like he’s underwater, suspended in an amorphous state of flux. To be frank, he’s felt that way ever since Angel left, and the dissonance is jarring. He refocuses or tries to, and it’s akin to adjusting the aperture of a camera lens. He rubs his eye. His myopia doesn’t help.

“In your heart of hearts, I believe you do care.”

He barks out a laugh. It reeks of self-deprecation. “I don’t think I possess one.”

“Stop being melodramatic. Of course you do.”

He glances away, only for his gaze to stop on his wrist. The gold plating catches and glints in the light, the flare both mesmerizing and mocking. He delves back safely inside himself, where the fractured part of his soul resides.

She doesn’t understand the half of it.

Alastor’s heart left with Angel.

Her voice hardens as he drifts in and out of his reverie. “Stop dithering and wasting your time on that self-fulfilling prophecy of yours, “ she scolds, and her earrings jingle with each small shake of her coiffed head, “and just let faith take you where it goes.”

He snorts. “You don’t believe in fate.”

Ever one for surprises, she sets her elbows on the table and pinches the tips of her leather-clad fingers. One by one, Rosie tugs off her gloves. She leans forward and laces their fingers together. His breath stutters in his throat.

“No. And I’m not going to offer up the usual platitudinous nonsense or tell you that everything will be fine. That is not who I am, unfortunately. But I will be here for you, you daft man, as long as you need me to be.”

The meat of her palms are gossamer soft, but the ridges calloused. Her delicate surgeon’s fingers coax the spaces between his fingers open.

“If he does return, he’s a fool. If he doesn’t, more’s the pity. You both love each other. Sex was never the problem. But darling, forever takes work. If you’d put half as much effort into your relationship as you do with the rest of your endeavours, there’s no doubt as to where he would be this very minute.”

She runs the pad of her thumb along the curve of his. “As it stands, you’ll have to be satisfied with second place for now.”

“I hardly believe you’d tolerate second in anything, Rosie,” he whispers, tracing her lifelines.

She murmurs her assent, or possibly dissent, but those words tangle up in the filigree of their conjoined fingers and the knotted, unspoken bonds of solidarity.

The tea grows cold with the passage of time.

* * *

He opens the door.

Vox shifts from side to side, hands shoved in his pockets.

He shuts the door.

He manages to get halfway down the hall when the sputtering stops and the banging begins.

“Open up, ya rude dick!”

Sighing, he reluctantly relents. Limbs heavy, he goes through the tedious rigmarole of unlocking and opening the door but blocks the entrance with his body.

“If you’re here to gloat-”

Vox lifts his hands in a show of supplication. “I’m not. Believe me, I want nothin’ but to, but eh. Not my style to kick dogs when they’re down.”

“What do you want?”

“Let me in, and I’ll tell ya.”

Alastor rolls his eyes but lets him pass the threshold (“Take off your shoes, we’re not heathens here”), and eyes him warily as they make their way to the living room. Eventually, the utter exhaustion of the day, no, _month_ , hits him like bricks. He sinks into the recliner, collapsing in the cushions. Vox mirrors his stance on the couch. He rubs his eyes.

“Jesus fuck. I can’t believe we missed that. Henry’s son? I thought he only had one. Shit.”

“We’re all liable for faulty information from time to time; you, even more so. I wouldn’t think too much of it,” Alastor says, deceptively light.

“Still.” He sighs. “Anyway, ya brought this upon yourself, so don’t go blamin’ me, asshole.” He holds up a hand before Alastor interjects. “But, you’re still young, and ya didn’t know any better.”

“We’re the same age, you dim-witted buffoon!”

Vox shrugs and withdraws his cigar-case from one of his pockets. He raises a brow, flicking his thumb up and down. Magnanimously, Alastor hurls his lighter at him, only half-heartedly aiming at his face. Before it ricochets off his intended target, Vox snatches it from the air.

He flips Alastor off, dexterously lighting his cigar at the same time. “That’s what I told the kid, anyway,” he mumbles around it.

Alastor straightens up, nails digging into the armchair. “You what?”

Vox rotates the lighter in his hand, reading the inscription under the light. He hums but wisely refrains from commenting. Alastor’s hackles instinctively rise. Vox puffs, then retrohales. Alastor’s fingers twitch as he fantasizes shoving the cigar up his-

Andouille interrupts his train of thought by ambling into the room. He waddles to their visitor, tiny nostrils flaring. He woofs as he nears Vox’s ankles.

“Sic him,” Alastor urges. “Attack!”

Vox rolls his eyes. Andouille, the consummate traitor, sniffs him and licks his hand. To Alastor’s abject horror, Vox reaches down and _squishes_ the dog’s face.

“Aww, you smellin’ Varkie? Who’s a good puppy, huh? You’re such a good boy! Who’s a good boy? You are!”

“I hate both of you,” Alastor declares, askance at the betrayal. He points to the dog. “I’m sending you the nearest canned meat factory.” He switches his ire to the other mongrel. “You as well. At least the dog is likely to induce less indigestion.”

Vox ignores him to scratch behind Andouille’s floppy ears.

“Your owner’s batshit,” he whispers conspiratorially. For Andouille’s sake, Alastor graciously turns the other cheek, but as usual, it never lasts long.

“I tried textin’ ya but you weren’t answerin’ shit. I’m beginnin’ to think that ya don’t love me anymore.”

At the mere mention of the word, Alastor leaps to his feet to pour them a drink. Both he and Vox pretend that it’s not a front to hide his face. And as he fumbles with the decanter, his blatant distress.

Try as he might, he cannot escape these self-inflicted wounds.

“So what is it, Vox? I’ve been taking it on the chin thus far. Rather sportingly, may I add.”

“You fuckin’ threw a lighter at my head!”

“You brought that upon yourself.”

“ _How_?”

Alastor ignores him, choosing instead to thrust the drink in his face. To his credit, it only splashes his shirt. And perhaps part of his trousers.

“Goddammit,” he spits. Alastor upends the tissues and unceremoniously dumps them on his lap. Vox dabs at the spots, snarling. “If you guys get married, I don’t wanna be a fuckin’ groomsman. Remember that, asshole.”

That stings. He isn’t sure why he expected it wouldn’t, but it does, nevertheless. He hides his grimace behind the lip of his glass, downing a substantial amount considering the contents. His head swims as the alcohol rushes into his bloodstream.

Alastor half wishes that Angel would just pull the plug on this relationship, and call a spade a spade. An increasingly agitated part of him wants to retreat inside himself, where it’s comfortable. Where it’s quiet.

Where it’s dead.

Alastor packed Angel’s bag last night, meticulously folding the rest of his clothes and his assorted knickknacks.

And why not?

There’s nothing left for him here.

Like Alastor’s mind, it’s all just clumps of uprooted flowers and gnarled, broken roots.

Vox coughs and startles him out of his headspace. He, like Rosie, seems determined to dump salt in the wound in order to encourage healing or some such prattle. By belaboring the point, it only serves to drive him further into himself.

To break up the oppressive fog that had settled over the conversation, Alastor tries for frivolity.

“So how much did you win, if any?”

Vox furrows his brow. “Win?”

“The bet, you moron. Regarding how long Angel and I were to last.”

Vox stares at him, mouth agape. “Are ya fuckin’ high? I told ya, I’m not a bettin’ man. Why the fuck would I bet on your relationship?”

Unexpected is an understatement. Alastor spits out his drink. “You what?” he sputters, hacking and undignified as all get out.

“Ya deaf as well as blind? I _said_ I didn’t bet!” His fingers dig into the cushions as he leans forward, glaring. “And lemme tell ya, I got so much shit for it! Val fuckin’ bitchslapped me and wouldn’t talk to me for a week because he thought I was sweet on ya!”

Just to be a prick: “Are you?”

“Suck my dick! You wish!”

“Well, that was contradictory!”

Vox scoffs, settling back into his seat. “Besides, that ain’t my style. I may be a dick, a murderer, an asshole, a cheat-”

“A blithering simpleton,” Alastor helpfully adds.

“Fuck off. A liar, and a playboy, but I ain’t no shithead. And look, man, I’m just gonna say this once-”

“Oh, thank god.”

“-but no matter how many holes ya fill to get over him, they won’t replace the one in your heart.”

Alastor blinks. Vox puffs up his chest, looking pleased as punch. Alastor is decidedly less so.

That is to say, not in the least.

“That was unspeakably crude, you utter imbecile. Did you just compare my heart to an orifice?”

“I mean, if the dick fits.” Alastor kicks in the direction of his shin and misses by about a foot. “And yeah, just thought of it now, ya know. A poet, and I ain’t even know it!” He grins. Alastor rolls his eyes.

Then, Vox shifts in that way when he’s either constipated or skirting the verge of a eureka moment in his oafish, pea-sized brain.

“Ya still got the ring, right?”

Alastor looks away. He downs the rest of his drink. “Yes,” he says, tightly.

“Then do me a favor. _When_ he comes back, fuckin’ pop the question as soon as it’s right. Don’t let him get away again.”

Alastor huffs, eschewing the decanter for cheaper swill. He tips the plastic bottle back, but not before saying, “Have you injured yourself? Brain damage, perhaps? Why is this-any of this-paramount to you?”

Vox shrugs.

“Eh, I don’t care a lick about your happiness, but I’ve known that kid for a while, and if anyone deserves it, it’s him. He may be a brat, but his heart’s in the right place. Plus, you’ve been way more level-headed nowadays, with the exception of that recent goddamn massacre, and that’s sayin’ somethin’. Sure, ya gotta know when to fold, but let me tell ya, chief: this ain’t it.”

In the brief armistice that follows, Alastor allows the alcohol to loosen his limbs and mind. He reflects on the oddity of the afternoon. Most of what spews out of Vox’s mouth is a mix of diarrheic sophistry and syllabic grunting, but even Alastor has to admit that today is an anomaly. He’s generally au fait with his enemy’s habits, but the evening’s unexpected turn of events throws him for a loop.

They finish their drinks in near companionable silence.

Just before the hallway clock hand hits six, Vox slaps his knees and hoists himself up. He stretches, joints popping in all the wrong places, and Alastor is struck at once at how much older they are all becoming. He keeps the thought to himself, mentally noting to revisit it later, and wordlessly pads after Vox to the door.

Just as Vox steps over the threshold, he grits out, “Thank you.”

It’s easier than he thought it would be.

For a split second and most likely due to a trick of the waning light, Vox smiles. It’s the most sincere expression Alastor has witnessed from the man in years. Perhaps even a simpleton like Vox is more than the sum of his parts.

“Aw. You gonna cry on me?”

Alastor stands corrected.

He viciously stems the urge to shove him into the ether and slam the door on his ass, when Vox saves him the trouble.

“Anyway,” he says, tossing Alastor back his lighter. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Keep what I said in mind. See ya around, Radio.”

Alastor watches his retreating back until it too disappears into the night.

The lighter embeds itself in his clenched palm. Wrestling back an impulse and failing, he lifts the metal case to the light. It draws his attention like everything else to do with Angel does nowadays. The etched inscription tauntingly reflects back at him.

_I love you as one loves certain obscure things,_

_secretly, between the shadow and the soul._

He stands there for a long time.

* * *

Alastor isn’t in the habit of shedding tears. But this does not mean that he lacks feeling, especially sadness. Tears just don’t come readily to him, if at all.

It’s just the way he was built.

When he was younger and more guileless, Alastor reasoned that something was wrong with him. That somehow, in that factory where they created everyone in the Lord’s image, a screw unbolted and, via Rube Goldberg shenanigans, wrecked the whole contraption and out came a monster. The nightmare still startles him awake on certain, restless nights. Angel soothes him back to sleep during those fits of pique, or used to.

His fear proved prescient when Angel left.

Alastor is not a man, but a monster.

And he could never dream to set foot into the normal world.

The only world that he’s ever known is below ground, in a lightless, subterranean place where men fear to tread. Both he and his colleagues know less about the outside world with every passing day, and they shun it as it does them.

Angel was his last tether to it. Without him, the window of light fades fast.

* * *

That night, he has a dream.

He’s racing through thickets, branches whipping his arms and thorns gnashing into his legs. The piercing howls echo in rapid succession over the snapping of twigs underfoot. His muscles tense and cramp, sharp hooks of biting pain digging into his flesh. He stumbles into the blackness, grasping fistfuls of muck as he slips in the brackish water. He hisses as a nail tears clean from the bed of his finger. It stings as it fills with blood and fetid grime. The hounds circle closer, now. And he is so very tired of running.

A flash of light. The first one pounces.

Searing, tearing, sawing flesh. Red. The ripping of viscera and sinew and the sickening copper miasma permeate the air in blood-splattered symphony. A spray of warmth. Spurting. His hand clamps over the gaping wound in his neck, slippery with desperation against the torn venous wires.

Red. Black. Red. Black.

Footsteps.

He blinks up at the lights, smiling.

Finally, he thinks as the world brightens, the static in his head increasing to a crescendo and not unlike the insectile buzzing around an overly luminous bulb.

Everything explodes.

His head flies back unnaturally and he thinks:

_Finally._

Alastor lurches awake, heaving.

The night air balloons his lungs with every gulp of breath. His hand twitches in cadaveric spasm. He scrabbles at the blankets. He nearly screams when cool wetness invades his bare side, but chokes it down along with the bile trapped in his throat. After a feeble attempt at grounding himself, he frantically darts his eyes around the room and finds two pairs staring up at him in the darkness. Andouille watches him with drowsy disinterest, nudging his nose into his bare torso. Fat Nuggets burrows into his side, heedless of his hooves. Alastor exhales forcefully through his nostrils. His fingers find the ears of the two animals before scratching behind them.

“Near-death experience,” he says aloud, to no one in particular. He reaches blindly for his glasses. Fat Nuggets grunts as he switches the lamp on.

In succession, two things:

The doorknob turns.

The room floods with light.

* * *

A phantom stands in the doorway, haloed by light.

As if he hadn’t already been haunting Alastor every step of the way.

He swiftly dismisses it. Lately, all Alastor has been seeing are ghosts.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” slurs Alastor to the apparition, voice gravelly with sleep. “Hullo, darling. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a long day tomorrow, and I’d rather not dream tonight. Feel free to leave the way you came through the abyss.”

“Al. Ya dumb fuck. It’s me.”

Alastor jolts up for the second time that night. He trips over his tongue.

“You’re back,” he breathes in awe. Something whirs back to life in his chest. He brings a hand to assuage the queer fluttering in it. He frowns. None of this can be good for his health.

Angel peers around the room. “Jesus, Al, it’s only nine-thirty.”

“I picked up an early shift tomorrow,” he says, tongue turgid and dumb with shock.

Angel walks towards the bed with that familiar swing in his step, and Alastor has to look away. His hands fist the sheets in a piss poor substitute of what he’d like to do.

 _Mark, claim, take back what’s his_ , roars the caged beast.

He refrains. Instead, he says dully, “I suppose you’ve come for the pig.”

Angel stops at the foot of their-his-bed. Alastor still refuses to meet his eyes. The silence is stifling and sharp until it isn’t.

“Yeah, ya could say that.”

Alastor finally looks up at his tone.

It’s heartbreaking.

Up close, the bags under his eyes are excruciatingly apparent. Angel looks as if he hasn’t slept at all since he left. His complexion lost some of its effervescent luster and even his freckles seem muted, somehow. As if all the exuberance was leeched from him. It’s either that or Alastor’s vision is truly going because for him, the world faded with Angel’s departure.

The speed at which the hues bleed back into his world is staggering in its whiplash. Alastor opens his mouth to say something, anything at all, but the words die in his throat as Angel holds up a hand.

“First,” he says, voice wavering, “did ya sleep with Stolas?”

This is a test.

It has to be, for Angel to ask him such a ridiculous question.

“Are you out of your- _why_ on earth would I do that?”

“Answer the question.”

“Absolutely not! Who the hell told you that?”

Angel releases a trapped breath. The air rushes out of him in a long sigh. He sags like a marionette who’s been freed from his strings. He rubs his red-rimmed eyes, smudging presumably yesterday’s makeup into the dark bags under them.

“Oh,” he says, swaying. Unthinkingly, Alastor pats the space next to him. Angel obediently sits. A low growl, or hum, thrums in his chest.

It feels a little like satisfaction.

It’s the closest they’ve been since their quarrel, and all Alastor wants to do is to reach out and simply touch. But he resists. He opens his mouth to speak, but Angel once again beats him to the punch.

“Ya gave up on us that fast, huh?” he hisses. Confused, Alastor follows his line of sight.

Ah.

The empty closet. And the packed suitcase on the floor, chock full of Angel’s things.

Oh no, Alastor thinks, narrowing his eyes. The sting in his chest spreads.

A veritable avalanche of venom.

“I wasn’t the one who left, Anthony.”

Angel bristles, matching his ire. “Fuck you! This is exactly what I mean! Do ya blame me for leavin’? I’m startin’ to believe ya either won’t admit you’re wrong, or ya don’t understand shit!”

When Alastor speaks again, he draws from his own well of poison.

“No, _you_ don’t understand, Angel,” he snarls. “You left after knowing all this time what sort of man I am, and what I had to do to ensure security. Do _you_ understand that, or can your delicate, maudlin mind not grasp that concept?” He sneers. “So easy for someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. You know nothing of sacrifice and what I had to do to get here.”

Angel slits his eyes. “Skirtin’ real close to the edge, there, Al. I’d reel it in if I were ya.”

He scoffs. “Is that a threat? As if that’s going to magically change my point of view. It bears repeating, Angel: the more I gain, the more I stand to lose.” He loses steam halfway. His voice creaks with decades-old weariness. “I can’t afford concessions, Angel. Not with my lifestyle.”

There is no immediate reply to that, but Alastor wasn’t expecting one. When it eventually comes, it’s softly spoken, like words in a snowstorm.

“You could change that. Be less reckless. Try somethin’ else. Somethin’ less fucked up.”

“How easy for you to say.”

Angel’s face contorts in a snarl. “Don’t ya mean easy for you? You’re the words guy, right, Al? The same one who offered me up like a bargainin’ chip? Like nothin’?”

“If you’d let me explain-”

“Fine! Explain. Why’d ya do it?”

“What did you think would’ve happened to you if I didn’t land the deal? If Lucifer found out I’d been granted an audience with your father and he turned it down?”

“I get that, sure. But goddammit, Al, I’d rather deal with Luci than find out that the man I love was willin’ to trade me for somethin’ stupid like money.” Angel’s lip trembles and Alastor forces himself to hold his gaze.

“So, I’m gonna ask you again, Al: why?”

It’s such a desperate, tinny plea.

Something inside Alastor ruptures wide open.

“Because I’m a fucking idiot!”

Angel’s eyes widen. Alastor hardly raises his voice, but the stress and the ache from the past couple of weeks spill over and drowns out the last of his decorum.

“I fucked up, Angel, I did! And I’m sorry! I’m truly sorry. You know, I can spin yarns for hours on end, pretty little golden fabrications that people want to hear. Lies come much easier to me than truth. What the hell was I supposed to tell your father? How much I care for you? How much you mean to me? How much easier it is to breathe now? How much I look forward to coming home every day just so I can spend time with you and be reminded of everything we’ve built together in a house I didn’t consider my home until you arrived? How much I want you to know that you mean more to me than anything, and how I wish that one day before you open your eyes and see what a massive lout I really am, you’ll wake up next to me one final time just to say, ‘Good morning, babe.’”

He shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubs his eyes. “I wish didn’t say that. I wish I could take it all back. But what’s done is done. I just want you to know that it was all a bluff. A fucking stupid, moronic bluff. I would never trade you. Not for the world. Not for everything.”

Regret drapes over him like a well-worn coat. His vocal cords fry with misuse. He stops, catching his breath. He needs to save them for tomorrow. And the day after. He needs to save them because his show will be the only thing he has left in this miserable world after Angel inevitably departs again, and he’ll be damned if he loses that too.

Rule two: It’s always safest to run.

“I can’t do this, Angel. It’s just not what I’m destined for. And it’s not at all what you’re meant for. Do us all a favor and please, just go.”

It is, faute de mieux, a most equitable outcome.

“I’ve taken the liberty of packing your things. Just take what you wish and go.”

He rips off his glasses and closes his eyes. He drapes an arm across his face; its sole purpose, a blindfold. He’s drained. It’s a novel sensation. He finds himself wishing to return to the nightmare. It was straightforward, at least that.

For a suspended moment, Alastor listens to the sounds of night. False gunfire blasts in short, iambic sequences from their living room. The wind carries the laughter and tire screeches of the teenagers lollygagging in the street outside. The pitter-patter of rain sprints across the rooftop. And then finally, that damned scent, and the soft breathing that accompanies it, as the bed indents and sinks in the previously empty spot next to him.

“D’ya want me to go?” he asks, uncertainty woven in the question. Warmth radiates off him in waves, and Alastor barely refrains from basking in it.

“Do ya want me to leave?” he repeats.

The “have you tired of me too” lurks just beneath that.

Alastor knows what he needs to say to break him. It is his métier. The corrosive words gather at the tip of his tongue. With one fell swoop, he can bring Angel to his knees.

Alastor is not a good man. He is a sadistic, ruthless, conniving villain of the highest order. Redemption was never in the cards for him.

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he says instead, “You know the answer to that, dear. I believe I just unwittingly gave it. In spades.”

The mattress shifts. “Yeah,” comes the hushed reply. “Yeah, ya did.”

Alastor stamps down the hysterical laughter bubbling in his chest. “If I’d have told you all of that at the time, would you have believed me?”

Another jostle. “Not in the moment, no,” Angel admits.

“You deserved more than empty words, Anthony.” He lifts his arm, enough for the light to seep back in, banishing some of the shadows.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re worth more than the world. Don’t ever sell yourself short, dear. Not to someone like me.”

That would be a mistake. A zero-sum game.

It’s always been.

Eyes still partially shielded by his arm, Alastor nearly jumps when the warmth presses up against his side. The torso molds to his ribcage and flutters skate up his chest, hesitant at first, as if testing still waters. The chokehold around his heart relaxes, and the weight on his chest lifts by a fraction.

“Ya can’t just say these flippant things to people and expect everyone to get what ya truly mean. Words have weight, Alastor. You, outta all people, should know that. And babe, I’m just tired. Tired of people usin’ me for their own gain.”

“I never meant to,” escapes his lips before he has a chance to curtail them.

“I’m startin’ to believe it,” Angel says around a wry smile. “But goddammit, Al, ya fucked up. Ya fucked up big time. But I want this. All of this, even this _mundane_ shit that bores ya. I wanna argue about who ate the last slice of pizza and who left the seat up at night. I wanna bitch at ya when ya forget to take your medication. I wanna come with ya to doctor’s appointments and gossip with the nurses at how difficult you’re bein’. I want us to grow old together.”

He nudges his hand under and delicately peels Alastor’s arm away from his face. Alastor marvels at the sudden blinding brilliance and the unparalleled sight.

“I want us to live. If we can help it.”

He presses onwards because that’s just what Angel does.

Bull-headed, bawdy, beautiful Angel.

_His._

“What we have _is_ worth it, Al. I just don’t wanna fight ya for it. Love ain’t a goddamn battlefield, ya dummy. An’ maybe I’m stupid too.” His voice cracks. A flush of color circulates back into his cheeks, injecting the wan skin with life.

“Because I don’t want anyone but you.”

For a while, the only sounds thereafter are quiet breaths and the vaguely musical legato of the night. A brief sojourn, in an otherwise unremarkable state. Then, after a beat and a sigh, the warmth near his side disappears. The bed creaks. Alastor startles. His hand shoots out, lightning-quick, just like in his dream.

This time, his fingers connect with something solid.

Something warm.

Alive.

“Wait,” he says, only marginally berating himself. The self-loathing dissipates like morning dew when Angel obeys.

“Stay.”

Alastor is not a man who begs. He is the type of creature who would rather amputate himself at the knee than fall to them in prostration. He is the embodiment of pride. A caricature of wrath.

But all those things failed in the end. They failed to give him what he foolishly wasn’t aware was missing, but what he, in this godforsaken world, needed.

Perhaps, he thinks, it’s time for a different approach.

“Please,” he says.

Angel pauses for a tenuous, heart-rending moment. Alastor’s chest pounds, the erratic beat drumming in his ears.

Last chance.

“Come home.”

Angel watches him under wet lashes. After an eternity, he moves forward. One.

Two.

Three.

Alastor’s heart seizes. It kickstarts, then floods with something akin to hope.

“I miss you,” he says. And, because he has nothing else left to lose:

“I love you.”

The corners of Angel’s lip quirk up in a slow curve. As if they had all the time in the world. His eyes crinkle, color blooms under his freckles, and it remains the most arresting sight in the known world. The mechanical whirring beneath his sternum, rusted with disuse, starts up again. In time and by rote, it may finally cease giving up the ghost entirely.

Angel leans forward. He rests his forehead on Alastor’s.

It feels so familiar. Like it’s happened before, in every possible permutation.

This centrifugal force tying them together. That inescapable orbital pull.

“I still love you too, ya know,” Angel says, and he bridges the gap between them.

Alastor’s world finally blurs.

* * *

In the darkness, Alastor maps Angel’s body with his hands. He travels down the ridges of his ribcage, the narrowed cliffs of his hipbones, and onto the flat expanse of his stomach. He follows the cartographic path with his lips, the yielding curves rising up to meet them.

Everything is just as he remembers.

And he is all the best for it.

* * *

“It’s been,” he eventually chokes out, “terribly lonely without you.”

He can tell without turning that Angel is looking straight at him.

Straight through him.

“I’m sure you knew that already.”

“Babe, ya never called or texted. How was I supposed to know that?”

“You told me to leave you alone, and I wanted to respect that. For once.”

There’s a short pause, and then: “I know. And thank you for that.”

“It was agony. I missed spending time with you. Everything became so mundane; _aimless_. Excruciatingly drab and boring. Like dousing everything in shades of grey after a world of color.”

Angel hums noncommittedly.

As retribution, Alastor pokes his ribs. “Anything to add?” he drawls as Angel squeals. He burrows his head into Alastor’s side to escape the onslaught.

“Sure. Maybe I missed your stinky pits,” he mumbles, nuzzling into said underarm as Alastor yelps.

“Disgusting.” But he can’t keep the smile from his voice.

Angel purrs as Alastor gently scratches under his chin. During the peaceful lull, Alastor waits for an opportune moment. When Angel sighs, he pounces.

“Would you like to go out sometime?”

Alastor momentarily drowns in anguish at how juvenile that sounded.

Thankfully, Angel quirks his lips. “Are ya askin’ me out on a date?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“Where?”

“Dancing.”

“I’d love to.”

The first few days, weeks, months will be hard; more difficult than they might ever imagine. Alastor will have to remedy age-old habits. Angel must relearn how to take Alastor’s explanations at face value.

Trust must be rebuilt.

Whether they stand the test of time is, as stated before, anyone’s guess.

Secretly, in the transient spaces between slumber and waking, in the crevices of dreams and the cusp of consciousness, Alastor knows that they will.

They have to.

“I just want this,” Angel whispers, placing a hand on Alastor’s chest, shielding his heart with his palm. “Forever.”

Alastor grins. “Think we’ll be able to pass muster?”

Angel laughs. Alastor’s heart flutters to life under his palm, bright and alive.

“I’d sure like to try.”

He reaches out. Alastor meets him halfway. He weaves their fingers and guides him out of bed and towards the closet.

Together, they rehang Angel’s clothes and begin setting everything else back to rights.

Later, in the comforting confines of their bed, Angel peers around the room, as if memorizing the colors, shadows, and sounds.

“I’m home,” he breathes in awe, and Alastor finally breaks.

When he wrings out the last of the heaves, all Alastor can manage out is a wet, “Yes, darling. You are.”

It’s cheesy and cliché and Alastor wouldn’t change it for anything.

He curls around Angel, and Angel yields to the embrace. The radiator drones and kicks at random intervals. Outside, the trees rattle and groan as the wind howls past the houses. The night is dark and arcane, but the warmth they generate is unrivaled.

They’re not perfect; far from it. But for now, they have each other, and in this world, which is at turns unpredictable and cruel, it means everything.

* * *

Countless religious rabble-rousers and earnest fanatics champion the idea of eternal paradise and what it encompasses.

The world, in all its misbegotten glory.

Life, the pursuit of good, morals, and all the other evangelical dross that trickles through the cracks. Alastor isn’t much for gods, or deities, for that matter, even though they tend to interweave themselves into various points in his life. As iconoclastic as Alastor tends to skew, he can admit defeat in one concept, and one concept only.

He watches the hitching of Angel’s chest and the minute flaring of his nostrils with every muted snore. And in the rippling underwater light of late evening-early morning, Alastor doesn’t remember when he’d ever been this devout.

Alastor reaches up and sweeps a lock of hair from Angel’s peaceful face. At the touch, Angel stirs, blinking once, eyes muzzy and unfocused with sleep. His mouth curves in a slow smile, and whatever words he murmurs is lost to the thudding in Alastor’s ears.

Tranquility, Alastor thinks. If they can swing it.

* * *

Angel yawns, skipping two steps with each stride up the stairs and into the shower.

Day shift for him. Four to twelve. His feet ache. He twists the knob to the middle setting, just shy of hot, and offhandedly wonders if he remembered to tip Tom on his shuffle out the door.

He suds up under the warm soothing spray, cursing as he discovers that his shampoo bottle is nearly empty. Since he fastidiously smells Alastor’s hair after nearly every wash, Angel is ninety percent certain as to who the culprit must be. He jots down a mental note to pilfer the good booze from Husk’s room while hypocritically squirting more of Alastor’s body wash onto his loofah.

After rinsing and toweling off, he pads to their bedroom, naked. He taps his fingers on the doorknob to some silly song trapped inside his head and squeezes lightly before turning it in a slow, deliberate motion.

The room is dark, but the light from the streetlamps and the luminous moon stream through the window. Alastor’s chest rises and falls with each low breath. Fat Nuggets whuffs in tandem, curled under his arm. Andouille twitches and woofs at his feet, lost in whatever wayward shenanigans dogs dream of.

Angel hangs his towel over the chair and tosses on briefs and one of Alastor’s old shirts. He lifts the covers and slides into their bed, crowded as it is, in the space carved out for him.

He fits perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The inscription on the lighter are lines from Pablo Neruda’s poem, One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII.
> 
> 2\. "You can’t always get what you want/but if you try sometimes/you get what you need" -The Rolling Stones, from their song, "You Can't Always Get What You Want"


End file.
